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Agents of Shield - Season 4

I'm not searching for any others. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

As I clearly said, and as I demonstrated in the links I provided, their portrayal has varied over the decades -- obviously, since they've been written and edited by many different people over generations in which the standards of comics have changed. I'm not saying they've never killed, I'm saying they haven't been portrayed exclusively and consistently as killers. You're focusing on their origins and their recent portrayals, but that disregards the decades in between when comics came to be aimed more at children and the Comics Code Authority placed severe restrictions on violent content. To believe that superheroes have been consistently and unvaryingly portrayed in a single way in the 50-70-some years since their creation is unrealistic in the extreme. The very nature of superhero literature is its mutability. Many characters have been portrayed as everything from dark and gritty casual killers to ultra-clean-cut, child-friendly paragons of virtue. You can't pick one single portrayal and insist it's the only one that exists. There is a choice in the matter.

Cases in point: The Ben Affleck Daredevil movie portrayed him as a deadly vigilante who came to question his violence and ended up choosing not to kill the Kingpin, but the MCU Daredevil is portrayed as a vigilante who almost invariably refuses to use deadly force. The MCU Hulk is portrayed as willing to kill, but the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno version was emphatically established as a non-killer -- both portrayals being consistent with the contemporary depictions in the comics. The Burton and Snyder versions of Batman are killers, but the Nolan version at least nominally refused to kill (though the movies were inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical in their depiction of that refusal), and most comics and animated incarnations of Batman since the mid-1940s have given him an inflexible code against killing. (Even Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns Batman wasn't a killer. "Rubber bullets. Honest.")

Yes, the earliest comics showed Batman and even Superman as routine killers, but that was the influence of the pulp literature they were derived from. The medium evolved over time due to many influences, and the popularity of comics among children led to a tighter rein on violence, leading to more moral and nonlethal heroes. That standard endured in comics throughout the '50s, '60s, and '70s, so characters from that time (such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) often had clearly stated policies against deadly force, even toward their worst enemies. Even Wolverine wasn't nearly as violent at the start as he became later in the '70s and '80s, as the trend started to reverse itself and more deadly characters began to appear. But many of the characters from that era have retained their no-kill policies even as other, deadlier heroes have emerged around them. Spider-Man is one of the most adamant non-killers; I recall an arc in Dan Slott's ongoing run from a few years ago where Spidey decided that he would not allow anyone, good or bad, to die in his presence if he could help it. Later, when his body was taken over by Dr. Octopus for an extended story arc, the "Superior Spider-Man"'s willingness to use lethal force was shocking to his friends and allies and led to some serious questioning of his sanity and identity by the Avengers, since killing is so massively out of character for Spider-Man (although a few of the Avengers, like Wolverine, were fine with him crossing that line).
 
Regarding the bullet hole in the skull . . . apparently that's a fairly recent addition to the comics saga, in that the Johnny Blaze character was "killed" by a holy bullet to his skull at one point. Which is more evidence that the "Good Samaritan" on the tv episode was supposed to be Johnny Blaze.

As for characters like Ghost Rider or the Spectre, it's perhaps worth noting that they straddle genres to a degree, having roots in both "superhero" comics and horror comics. As noted, long-running characters tend to get different treatments over the decades, but I'd argue that the Spectre (who is one of my favorite comic-book characters) is supposed to be scary and horrific, and the cruel "justice" of his stories is the justice of TALES OF THE CRYPT, not Superman or Captain Marvel. A restrained, humane Spectre who doesn't turn people into wood and feed them through buzz-saws kind of misses the point.

(Don't get me started on the Hal Jordan Spectre, who was supposed be some sort of sensitive New Age version of the character. Didn't work for me at all.)

Ghost Rider is a bit more superhero-y, but let's not forget that he was invented at the height of Marvel's "horror" boom back in seventies. To some degree, he was at least partly meant to be a "monster" character like Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Man-Wolf, The Living Mummy, Simon Garth the Zombie, etc.

And monsters tend to be kinda bloodthirsty.
 
I dislike Mace, and consider him a bad guy, but he's much better in the role of anti-Coulson SHIELD person then Gonzales was (and actually understandable, even if I think he's on the wrong side, as opposed to Gonzales just being a prejudiced jerk).


Gonzales was in the process of trying to overcome his prejudices, when he was murdered by another bigot, namely Skye's mother.


I find it interesting that in his fight with Skye, Robbie aka Ghost Rider did not try to kill her. Yet, in his fight with Mace, others had to step in and try to stop him from killing the latter. Perhaps Ghost Rider knows something about the director that others do not.
 
Ghost Rider is a bit more superhero-y, but let's not forget that he was invented at the height of Marvel's "horror" boom back in seventies. To some degree, he was at least partly meant to be a "monster" character like Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Man-Wolf, The Living Mummy, Simon Garth the Zombie, etc.
Yep. As a comic reading kid back in the 70s, I remember being very interested in the way that the Silver Age morphed into the Bronze Age, and loved stuff like Ghost Rider and Morbius because it was so different to, for instance, classic 60s Fantastic Four. Which I also loved. And still do. :)
 
Yep. As a comic reading kid back in the 70s, I remember being very interested in the way that the Silver Age morphed into the Bronze Age, and loved stuff like Ghost Rider and Morbius because it was so different to, for instance, classic 60s Fantastic Four. Which I also loved. And still do. :)

Dare I admit that I used to write Marvel Monster fanfic back in junior high? (Although I didn't learn the word "fanfic" until much later.) I recently stumbled onto a cache of handwritten stories tucked away in my parents' old house and, yeah, it was all Morbius, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Lilith--Daughter of Dracula, and the like.

Clearly, that stuff made quite an impression on me back in the day.

(I also found an ancient rejection slip from Tom DeFalco, one-time editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, urging me to keep at it since I seemed to show some potential. I had completely forgotten about that!)
 
As noted, long-running characters tend to get different treatments over the decades, but I'd argue that the Spectre (who is one of my favorite comic-book characters) is supposed to be scary and horrific, and the cruel "justice" of his stories is the justice of TALES OF THE CRYPT, not Superman or Captain Marvel. A restrained, humane Spectre who doesn't turn people into wood and feed them through buzz-saws kind of misses the point.

Yeah, I get that, though the idea that someone that vicious is an embodiment of the wrath of God is pretty, err, Old-Testament. The suggestion that that's actually how the DC Universe works on a cosmic/supernatural level is rather disturbing. If God is okay with such brutality, doesn't that imply that characters like Superman and (comics-version) Batman, who favor a strict policy against killing, are objectively wrong? How can a mortal be more morally evolved than God? And what about the New Testament and its insistence that God was a being of love and forgiveness? Was that all just fake, then? How can the Spectre and Christ both exist in the same cosmology? It just raises so many questions.


I find it interesting that in his fight with Skye, Robbie aka Ghost Rider did not try to kill her. Yet, in his fight with Mace, others had to step in and try to stop him from killing the latter. Perhaps Ghost Rider knows something about the director that others do not.

Do we know GR was going to kill Mace? He did fight Daisy for a while, and it wasn't until he'd beaten her and had her at his mercy that he paused, sized her up, and concluded that she didn't "deserve" to die. Maybe he would've done the same with Mace if it had gotten to that point.
 
Regarding the bullet hole in the skull . . . apparently that's a fairly recent addition to the comics saga, in that the Johnny Blaze character was "killed" by a holy bullet to his skull at one point. Which is more evidence that the "Good Samaritan" on the tv episode was supposed to be Johnny Blaze.

Part of me would get a huge kick out of it if this not only turn out to be the MCU's Johnny Blaze, but that he's been the Ghost Rider since the early 70's. That would make him the MCU's second legacy character and put him in a time and place where he may have already crossed paths with Carter, Pym, or Fury. I mean who knows what's buried in SHIELD's redacted files?
It would also make his classic origin make a little more sense. I get the impression that travelling carnivals and circuses were much more common and more of a draw back then than they are now. (I grew up in the 80's, but I played with enough of the older brother's hand-me-down toys as a kid to be away that Evel Knievel was a thing in the 70's.)

I dare say if one were writing the character today, I think one would be more inclined to cast him as a stunt driver for movies & TV, or maybe some guy who makes daredevil go-pro videos on youtube.

As for characters like Ghost Rider or the Spectre, it's perhaps worth noting that they straddle genres to a degree, having roots in both "superhero" comics and horror comics. As noted, long-running characters tend to get different treatments over the decades, but I'd argue that the Spectre (who is one of my favorite comic-book characters) is supposed to be scary and horrific, and the cruel "justice" of his stories is the justice of TALES OF THE CRYPT, not Superman or Captain Marvel. A restrained, humane Spectre who doesn't turn people into wood and feed them through buzz-saws kind of misses the point.

(Don't get me started on the Hal Jordan Spectre, who was supposed be some sort of sensitive New Age version of the character. Didn't work for me at all.)

Ghost Rider is a bit more superhero-y, but let's not forget that he was invented at the height of Marvel's "horror" boom back in seventies. To some degree, he was at least partly meant to be a "monster" character like Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Man-Wolf, The Living Mummy, Simon Garth the Zombie, etc.

And monsters tend to be kinda bloodthirsty.

Exactly. For anyone that hasn't read Ghost Rider's first appearance was very much a supernatural horror story, with the slightly modern twist of the motorcycle. There's really not a lot of superheroing going on there. It's all tragedy, melodrama and violent (for the time) revenge.

Now that I think about it, wasn't Hulk originally a horror book too? He certainly seems like a mash-up of Frankenstein's monster with Jekyll & Hyde.
 
Now that I think about it, wasn't Hulk originally a horror book too? He certainly seems like a mash-up of Frankenstein's monster with Jekyll & Hyde.

Yeah -- in the first two issues, the Hulk was essentially a villain with ambitions to conquer the world, but he kept getting exposed to sunlight and changing back to Banner before he could actually do anything. So they dropped that in issue 3 and had the Hulk become a mindless slave to Rick Jones for about an issue, then gave him Banner's intelligence in issue 4, with Banner changing to the Hulk and back at will using a gamma-ray machine. So it pretty quickly abandoned the horror stuff in favor of something more superheroic. Though the intelligent Hulk was colder and more hostile than Banner, and eventually Banner started to lose his intelligence when stuck in Hulk form too long, which is where the classic dumb-Hulk characterization originated. I read the first Essential Hulk collection not long ago, and it was wild how the creators kept changing the concept every few issues until it finally started to evolve into the classic version of the character.
 
As I clearly said, and as I demonstrated in the links I provided, their portrayal has varied over the decades -- obviously, since they've been written and edited by many different people over generations in which the standards of comics have changed. I'm not saying they've never killed, I'm saying they haven't been portrayed exclusively and consistently as killers. You're focusing on their origins and their recent portrayals, but that disregards the decades in between when comics came to be aimed more at children and the Comics Code Authority placed severe restrictions on violent content. To believe that superheroes have been consistently and unvaryingly portrayed in a single way in the 50-70-some years since their creation is unrealistic in the extreme. The very nature of superhero literature is its mutability. Many characters have been portrayed as everything from dark and gritty casual killers to ultra-clean-cut, child-friendly paragons of virtue. You can't pick one single portrayal and insist it's the only one that exists. There is a choice in the matter.

Cases in point: The Ben Affleck Daredevil movie portrayed him as a deadly vigilante who came to question his violence and ended up choosing not to kill the Kingpin, but the MCU Daredevil is portrayed as a vigilante who almost invariably refuses to use deadly force. The MCU Hulk is portrayed as willing to kill, but the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno version was emphatically established as a non-killer -- both portrayals being consistent with the contemporary depictions in the comics. The Burton and Snyder versions of Batman are killers, but the Nolan version at least nominally refused to kill (though the movies were inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical in their depiction of that refusal), and most comics and animated incarnations of Batman since the mid-1940s have given him an inflexible code against killing. (Even Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns Batman wasn't a killer. "Rubber bullets. Honest.")

Yes, the earliest comics showed Batman and even Superman as routine killers, but that was the influence of the pulp literature they were derived from. The medium evolved over time due to many influences, and the popularity of comics among children led to a tighter rein on violence, leading to more moral and nonlethal heroes. That standard endured in comics throughout the '50s, '60s, and '70s, so characters from that time (such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) often had clearly stated policies against deadly force, even toward their worst enemies. Even Wolverine wasn't nearly as violent at the start as he became later in the '70s and '80s, as the trend started to reverse itself and more deadly characters began to appear. But many of the characters from that era have retained their no-kill policies even as other, deadlier heroes have emerged around them. Spider-Man is one of the most adamant non-killers; I recall an arc in Dan Slott's ongoing run from a few years ago where Spidey decided that he would not allow anyone, good or bad, to die in his presence if he could help it. Later, when his body was taken over by Dr. Octopus for an extended story arc, the "Superior Spider-Man"'s willingness to use lethal force was shocking to his friends and allies and led to some serious questioning of his sanity and identity by the Avengers, since killing is so massively out of character for Spider-Man (although a few of the Avengers, like Wolverine, were fine with him crossing that line).
Wall of Christopher! We surrender! Have mercy on us, we beseech thee!
 
To an extent, yes, I'll grant that -- but the Hulk generally isn't portrayed as a killer either. More violent comics characters in general aren't to my taste.

And I just don't care for the idea that cosmic forces embrace the concept of vengeance, which I consider a primitive, stupid, destructive force that does more to perpetuate injustice than to restore justice. After all, it tends to be a feedback loop -- killing out of vengeance just prompts the other side to kill out of vengeance, and back and forth forever. I see vengeance as the infection vector by which the disease of violence perpetuates itself. It's not a solution, it's part of the problem. But the idea that there's an intrinsic supernatural force of vengeance implies that vengeance is somehow a natural law of the universe, which implies that it's somehow right, and I find that a very unpleasant idea. Although I guess it's not as bad with Ghost Rider, who's possessed by a demonic force, than it is with DC's Spectre, who's supposed to be an agent of God. But from what I've seen, the former is still portrayed as doing justice by punishing evildoers.
Does The Spectre go after everyday bad guys or ones who could arguably deserve a more extreme version of "justice" than Batman or Superman would give? This not criticism, it's an honest question, my only experience with the character is the DC Showcase short film, and the barely a cameo in Constantine.
Dare I admit that I used to write Marvel Monster fanfic back in junior high? (Although I didn't learn the word "fanfic" until much later.) I recently stumbled onto a cache of handwritten stories tucked away in my parents' old house and, yeah, it was all Morbius, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Lilith--Daughter of Dracula, and the like.

Clearly, that stuff made quite an impression on me back in the day.

(I also found an ancient rejection slip from Tom DeFalco, one-time editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, urging me to keep at it since I seemed to show some potential. I had completely forgotten about that!)
Did you ever get to tackle any of those characters in your published Marvel novels?
 
Does The Spectre go after everyday bad guys or ones who could arguably deserve a more extreme version of "justice" than Batman or Superman would give? This not criticism, it's an honest question, my only experience with the character is the DC Showcase short film, and the barely a cameo in Constantine.

Those are also my only experiences to speak of, along with his appearances in Batman: The Brave and the Bold (where he was voiced by Mark Hamill in a marvelously malevolent way).
 
Did you ever get to tackle any of those characters in your published Marvel novels?

I managed to sell a Spider-Man story featuring Morbius to a short-story collection, THE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. That same story was also printed as bonus story in issue #120 of the WEB OF SPIDER-MAN comic book.

And,yes, I have that issue framed on the wall of my office.
 
I read the first Essential Hulk collection not long ago, and it was wild how the creators kept changing the concept every few issues until it finally started to evolve into the classic version of the character.
Hulk's first book was cancelled after 6 issues. Took him a year and half to get a second shot in Tales To Astonish
 
I find it interesting that in his fight with Skye, Robbie aka Ghost Rider did not try to kill her. Yet, in his fight with Mace, others had to step in and try to stop him from killing the latter. Perhaps Ghost Rider knows something about the director that others do not.

I noticed this as well. Something to keep in mind as we learn more about Mace, see if this was intentionally setting up his potential misdeeds. I still think Mace being evil is too simple, and thus probably a red herring. But wouldn't be the first time the obvious choice was the right one, either.

On the other hand, maybe it was just inconsistent writing, and we're thinking it through farther than the creators did.
 
Ah. I knew *someone* died in a bike crash. ;)
I just remembered that his name was "Crash" Simpson. He probably should have called himself "Safe Landing" Simpson.

Still, it seems like from a thematic and mythological POV that would be a better fit if he did die, just like Robbie. I mean summoning Satan for a cancer cure sounds more like something you'd expect to see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (not that that's a bad thing of course!)
Well, for the character to be sympathetic, he had to have summoned Satan for an unselfish reason. As Jesus said in a later issue, "Johnny Blaze's only sin was despair."

Oh sure, eventually. I was just talking about how the character was initially presented, which is basically where we are with Robbie now. He's not a fully formed character yet as he's still in the midst of his origin story.
My memory isn't perfect, but I don't recall Johnny having that kind of inner conflict until Jim Shooter took over. In those early stories (in Marvel Spotlight and his own first dozen or so issues), it was basically just Satan sending agents to get him-- plus, having a flaming skull is a huge trouble magnet.

To some degree, he was at least partly meant to be a "monster" character like Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Man-Wolf, The Living Mummy, Simon Garth the Zombie, etc.
Actually, he was 100% monster character. He didn't become "the most supernatural superhero of all" until the monster craze lost its bloom. The same thing happened in Werewolf By Night, where Doug Moench and Don Perlin gave Jack control over his changes and teamed him up with Iron Man. That one didn't work, though. Also, all those characters you mentioned were all good guys, despite being monsters (except maybe Son of Satan-- I'm not familiar with him).

(I also found an ancient rejection slip from Tom DeFalco, one-time editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, urging me to keep at it since I seemed to show some potential. I had completely forgotten about that!)
I still have my encouraging rejection slip from my Skull The Slayer script that I submitted-- must have been in 1977-- and a similar personal rejection from Jim Shooter for a story I submitted to Marvel Fanfare (before the first issue came out, at a time when I seriously overestimated how adult the content would be :rommie: ).
 
Hulk's first book was cancelled after 6 issues. Took him a year and half to get a second shot in Tales To Astonish
Yeah, I always think about that with Hulk in the MCU. He's well-liked in team movies, but no one cared about his solo movie. The books always ran into the problem of what do you do when the character you like (the Hulk) is something they spend half the time trying to keep from appearing.
 
Hulk's first book was cancelled after 6 issues. Took him a year and half to get a second shot in Tales To Astonish

Yes, exactly. It took them a while to figure out what to do with the character. Also, of course, he had guest appearances in other books, notably Fantastic Four, and was one of the founding members of The Avengers, though he left after a couple of issues. The problem with the Essential Hulk collection I mentioned is that it doesn't include all his appearances between his solo book and TtA (I think it has some, but not all), so there's a gap in it.
 
Well, for the character to be sympathetic, he had to have summoned Satan for an unselfish reason. As Jesus said in a later issue, "Johnny Blaze's only sin was despair."

Oh sure, when it comes to motivations yes, no question. It's just that in these kinds of stories when the devil comes to collect, it's usually to take either a life or a soul (or both.) I get the impression that Johnny still has his soul (hence: anguish) so I think it'd work better in a mythological sense if he took his life too.
I'm not saying it *has* to be this way and if they're sticking to the comics then he won't be. I guess in my head I *really* like the idea that he's been the Ghost Rider for over 40 years and a 60 or 70 year old Johnny Blaze still riding around in his chopper (though not impossible) would just seem a bit odd. Him being essentially undead and thus un-ageing just feels right somehow.

My memory isn't perfect, but I don't recall Johnny having that kind of inner conflict until Jim Shooter took over. In those early stories (in Marvel Spotlight and his own first dozen or so issues), it was basically just Satan sending agents to get him-- plus, having a flaming skull is a huge trouble magnet.

I definitely recall a whole page of anguished monologing in that first issue.
*googles*
OK, photobucket is down, so I can't show you the scan, so I'll have to transcribe it: -
<Now...the transformation is finished! You are human once more! But...when will it happen again...WHEN?! The question eats at your soul like a cancer>

"It's over...and my secret is safe! But what about next time?!"
"Will I ever be... free?! Or am I doomed to a dual life... man by day... and monster by night?!"

I'd say that qualifies as melodramatic inner turmoil. ;)
 
While third person narrator is definitely dated, second person narrator is even more so. It's something I associated with Iron Fist (Roy Thomas and Chris Claremont) more than silver age books.
 
While third person narrator is definitely dated, second person narrator is even more so. It's something I associated with Iron Fist (Roy Thomas and Chris Claremont) more than silver age books.

Yeah, I recently read an article that had some page excerpts from old Iron Fist comics and I was puzzled by that second-person narration, as if the narrator were addressing Danny Rand directly. Was that standard for that book?
 
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